Excerpt from The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, Vol. 4: Preserved at Welbeck Abbey The first volume of the Calendar of Harley letters and papers concluded with the year 1700, immediately after the death of Sir Edward Harley, and a month or two before the first election of his son Robert to the, Speakership of the House of Commons. A'few of the earlier pages in this volume contain abstracts or c0pies of. Other letters written in 1700, which were not forthcoming at the time when the that volume was com 'pleted at press, but the main portion of the manuscript material here printed ranges in date between 1701 and the end of May just after Robert Harley's elevation to the peerage as Earl of Oxford and Mortimer and his appointment to the supreme office of Lord Treasurer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.